The ongoing anti-harassment protests in Jamia Milia Islamia against the HoD Hafeez Ahmad of the Applied Arts in the Fine Arts Department, in my opinion, is only the tip of the iceberg and sets a precedent for us at Jamia to see this incident not as an isolated one but a collective united fight against the inherently toxic masculine feudal culture of Jamia which in other parlance is referred to as ‘tehzeeb’ by the guardians of the morality of the ‘culture’ of Jamia.
Other issues raised by the students have been those of discrimination on the basis of identity and demonizing of regional identities. One such example has been demonizing those who belong to Kashmir and calling them ‘terrorists.’
This feels like a classic case of Muslim apologia where in order to be accepted in the Liberal Circles of the University and its Police Bureaucracy, one has to prove himself/herself not Muslim enough, but as a moderate Muslim or a ‘modern thinking nationalist’ Muslim and try as much to parrot the nationalist vocabulary to make way in the top of this feudal nationalist ladder of which Jamia administration is a classic example.
The top administration posts, mind you, aren’t professors or senior professors (as it should ideally be) but are people from Indian bureaucracy (surprise surprise). Oh also, we are not allowed to have a students’ union.
The appeasers in this quagmire also need a sustained base, an army which is made of goons and hooligans in the university by giving them favors in the nature of marks on assignments, references, preference, et al. This has all come out of my personal observations and in conversation with the protesting Applied Arts students’ demands.
Students wishing not to be named tell me that back-door entries in admissions is an open secret. Ego battles between faculty members, concentrated hierarchies, ego clashes between students and teachers over difficult questions being asked are some other deeply feudal aspects of it.
The demands of suspension of the HoD and his goons who physically and sexually assaulted women students in an attempt to shield this perpetrator are very crucial to this fight, however, will get isolated if we don’t point out the everyday sexism and misogyny of our classrooms and how normalized it has become.
We, especially as women students, need to call out everyday abusive language directed at women, the slurs that demean women, casual sexism and the normalization of it. The spaces where a culture of questioning and interrogating authority is almost unimaginable. The blank walls of Jamia, which ideally should speak in a university also point to the fact of how the culture of silence is passed off as education here.
In the harassment cases, initially, the administration had dismissed previous cases as ‘being a matter of the past’ and said they should be forgotten. The administration needs to be reminded of the fact that this is the age of fourth wave feminism, the age of #MeToo. Forgetting and letting go of past, in fact, is now a matter of the past!
The existence and birth of #MeToo points to the historical failure of due process and we’ve all seen how due process is often just a tool to shield and protect the perpetrators. The Jamia administration is trying to do the same by delaying the suspension of the HoD.
When asked where the ICC is, the administration has no answers. The university does not even have a proper sexual harassment redressal committee like an ICC or GSCASH!
There is one ICC for the sake of it on paper but no one has a clue about its existence. If it were a democratic body, campaigning and elections would take place every year and everyone would know about its existence.
It is high time we had access to a proper form of redressal. Years of delay in this process points to a larger power nexus at play which is frightening to say the least.
Democracy is absent in the university and the top-down bureaucratic control is to be seen in students’ grievances, complains and slogans. In every Jamia protest, we hear students sloganeering “tanashaahi nahi chalegi” (we won’t accept your dictatorship). The culture of elections and democratically elected bodies would create alternate imaginings in the air, imaginings of a pro-people university.
During the present round of protests, women students have talked to me about harassment in other departments of Jamia as well. It feels like this is just the start of years of enforced silence due to fear of persecution and targeting, breaking.
During the same protests however, we also saw several male students taking up the space to speak and chant slogans. Hardly any women students were given as much space to articulate their concerns. This also gives us an idea about how important it is to create a safe space for women to hold the mic in equal capacity.
This historic movement is just opening the can of worms and the administration needs to understand that it is a long fight. We will fight it united until the end, come what may.
Statements of solidarity coming in from various organizations, colleges and universities have been overwhelming and I would like to thank the student fraternity for this collective solidarity. We have given each other strength, power, and hope in the toughest and the bleakest of times.
Thank you.